Mary Alexander: Hi, I am Mary Alexander from Home Instead Senior Care. And today I am going to provide some tips for how to help you balance work and in-home care.

It seems like over the past 10 to 15 years the topic of work-life balance is being talked about more and more in magazines, newspapers and on TV. The advent of dual career families and technology that keeps us on call 24x7, means that there are more obligations and interruptions in each aspect of our lives, which then in turn creates stress.

For those of you who are serving as family caregivers, on top of work and your family obligations, it's really easy to see how your work-life balance can get totally turned upside down. In fact, the Institute for Aging at the University of Pittsburgh says that when the need for care-giving presents itself, finances become an increasing concern, as-well-as balancing care giving and work to avoid reductions in pay or loss of possible advancement.

Caring for your loved ones, especially for a spouse or older parent often presents needs that conflict with the ability to work, resulting in the caregiver needing to take time off, sometimes without pay. That of course adds to the stress level of the family caregiver. And as a caregiver, if you don't manage your stress well, you're likely to get sick yourself resulting in an additional time off work which increases the stress level even more. Believe it or not, balancing work and family care-giving responsibilities is common.

In this video series, we will go in depth about what work-life balance is and what factors can tip that out of balance. We'll then give you tools in each of the following videos that can help with your family care-giving duties, balancing those responsibilities at work and give you some ways to find time to take care of yourself.

Before we begin, let me tell you a little bit about Home Instead Senior Care. Home Instead Senior Care, the national leader in providing in-home care services for seniors is bringing you this video series to help you, help your senior loved ones, helping seniors is something Home Instead has been doing passionately for more than 15 years. I not only work for Home Instead, but I am a certified Senior Advisor. More importantly, I am currently a long distance caregiver for my dad, and I spent several months caring for my mom locally.

Now, let's talk about just what this illusive work-life balance is.